


both eyes closed in hopes your colors haven't changed

by I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them



Series: Storms [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:33:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23399266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them/pseuds/I_wouldnt_be_one_of_them
Summary: Perhaps it was inevitable that it would be just as he slipped into this mindset – existential doubt caused by John Silver – that he would glance across the street as he was walking home from work and see Silver himself.-John and James find each other again, entirely without meaning to, because of course they do.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/John Silver
Series: Storms [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683193
Comments: 7
Kudos: 91





	both eyes closed in hopes your colors haven't changed

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the follow up to "for such an arduous descent" I didn't really mean to write! I couldn't decide whether I wanted this duo to be canon compliant or canon divergent so I've intentionally left the details of what happened in the interval kind of vague. Also while this is intended as a sequel there are only a few lines referencing the other fic so it can work as a standalone!

John Silver is standing across the street, petting a dog.

His hair, still long but a bit shorter than it was when James last saw him, is obscuring his face since he’s bent over. But James knows it’s him, knows it without question, would know even if he couldn’t see the crutch. They haven’t seen each other in years and there is no reason for him to be here, but James recognized him at a glance.

James tries to push past the shock that has emptied his brain. He wonders if this is some kind of hallucination. Again: there is no reason for him to be here. And the timing is unbelievable.

A storm was raging here for days. Only in the past few hours has it died down; for a while it felt like it would never end. It had a ferocity rarely seen here: lightning and thunder chasing each other with barely any pause between the flash and the roar, rain coming down in torrential sheets from all directions, powerful gusts of wind howling and whistling through the trees and shaking everything in their path and cracking branches, roadways flooding.

Bad weather happens everywhere, of course, but this town is just far enough inland and just far enough north that it is usually safe from this particular kind of storm, a storm not unlike the ones that reign in the tropics. Flint knew this kind of storm intimately well, once. But James had not seen this kind of storm for many years.

Today he has found himself thinking, for the first time in weeks, of John Silver, and the twist of his voice as he confessed to thinking that Flint’s grief and fury had somehow caused the tempest before they were becalmed.

It had been a ridiculous notion, of course; Flint had thought so then and still thinks so now. Yet he has never quite been able to get it out of his mind. Certainly he was always plagued by rumors of supernatural intervention when he was Captain, even before meeting Silver, and don’t all myths rise from a kernel of truth? And this storm – he was in a wretched mood the morning it started, and before he knew it the sky seemed to be reflecting that mood; he mostly calmed down this afternoon and then the rain finally stopped. Coincidence, surely. But what if it wasn’t?

Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that it would be just as he slipped into this mindset – existential doubt caused by John Silver – that he would glance across the street as he was walking home from work and see Silver himself.

He can’t fucking breathe. He wants to cross the street, but he is unsure what he would do once they were within reach of each other – hug him? punch him? He doesn’t have to decide, because he seems to be frozen in place. Helpless, he watches the man who destroyed and saved him ruffle the terrier’s fur with a smile before straightening.

Staring at him so intently, James sees the moment Silver sees him, and that astonished look is something he could not have invented. This is not a hallucination. John Silver is really here.

And he’s looking at him like he’s seen a ghost, which means he’s not here for James and probably didn’t even know he was here. The realization stings more than it should.

After a long pause during which they just stare at each other while standing stiffly on opposite sides of the roadway, Silver shakes himself and crosses over to him, but when he’s a few feet away his crutch slips in a muddy puddle. On instinct James reaches out to hold him upright, and a tremor goes through them both at that first contact. Silver yanks his arm away, but as soon as he has his footing again he’s stepping in closer, almost like he doesn’t realize he’s doing it.

Always mixed messages, with him. Never clear whether he wants to get away or get closer. A familiar feeling of frustration rises in James.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” The sharpness of the words is undercut by the way his voice cracks, and he grits his teeth, annoyed at himself now too. How can he still keep letting this man hold such power over him?

“What am _I_ doing here?” Silver asks incredulously. “What the fuck are _you_ doing here?”

“I fucking live here!”

Silver’s eyes widen. “I didn’t know.”

“Clearly. I’ll ask again, what are you doing here?”

“Business,” he says vaguely.

James rolls his eyes but is distracted from pressing the issue when a trio of children runs past them, making those child-at-play noises that are difficult to distinguish as laughter or screaming. The disruption serves to remind him that they’re out in public, and they shouldn’t be doing this here.

Without a word he starts walking in the direction of his house, fighting the urge to look back to see if Silver is following him. Every time he thinks about turning he just reminds himself, bitterly, of Silver walking away from him at the end. _He_ hadn’t looked back, not once.

Sometimes at night when James lets his thoughts spiral, he thinks of Orpheus and Eurydice, and wonders if Eurydice might have been just the smallest bit grateful, as their eyes met that final fateful time, to have confirmation without a doubt that he loved her.

It’s not far to his home, though the effort of focusing on anything beyond the riot in his heart makes it feel like an eternity. James pushes the door open and stumbles inside and only then does he turn around.

And oh, he had wanted so badly to be angry. But the surge of relief when he sees John Silver lurching through the doorway right after him is overwhelming.

“Shut the door,” he says hoarsely, turning away without waiting for him to obey. He heads over to crouch before the fireplace and goes about lighting it with trembling hands. He hears John step into the room and drop into one of the chairs at the table, but he can’t bring himself to look at him full on.

He finally gets the fire burning but doesn’t move for a minute, just stares blankly into the hearth, trying to steady his breathing. John doesn’t try to talk, just watches him and waits patiently for him to rise and join him at the table.

“You grew your hair back out,” John says eventually.

“No shit.”

He sighs. “Sorry, I just don’t know where to even start. But it is good to see you.”

James chokes back all the harsh retorts that fly to mind and just lifts his head to finally meet his eyes, finally look closely at him. He’s aged, of course; he’s still young, relatively speaking, but all the lines of his face have deepened. His hair is tangled in places. There’s a cut on his cheek that appears to be healing badly, and a small bruise on his chin that’s probably not a love bite. He looks like a mess, and more than that he looks exhausted, but fuck. He’s still beautiful. And he’s staring back at James with an expression that seems painfully earnest, like he really does mean it that he’s glad to be here with him.

Not that James should trust that. He was always good at selling his lies.

But he can’t stop thinking of another night, another moment of silence after chaos, another dimly lit room, another time when John Silver found him right when he didn’t know he needed him, Flint asking _“Why are you here”_ and Silver saying _“I wanted to see you.”_

The truth wrenches itself out. “I missed you.”

John reaches out and covers one of James’s hands with one of his own, and James shudders and turns his hand over so John’s large calloused fingers can lock with his. The warmth of his palm seems to sink straight into James’s soul, a fanciful thought that nevertheless feels true, and it’s enough to break down whatever part of him has been trying to resist falling back into this.

“James,” starts John quietly, but then he doesn’t continue, just lets the name hang in the air between them and looks down at their hands.

“John. Look at me.” A hypocritical order, when only a minute ago he couldn’t bear to look at him either, but he says it anyway, and John slowly lifts his gaze. Maintaining eye contact, James raises their hands and places a lingering kiss on John’s knuckles.

“God.” John swallows. “How can we do this, after everything?”

“There was a time when you and I were about as close as two people could be,” James says, granting him a crooked smile. “And that was a bond forged in exceptional circumstances. I’m not sure a difficult parting and a few years apart can fully undo all that.”

“You don’t think we’re different people now?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I know nothing of your life, and I’m not going to ask right now, and you know next to nothing of mine. But I know that every version of myself I have ever been is still somewhere within me, and I know that I recognize something familiar within you. That’s enough for me, at least as a start. If you don’t feel the same, you can say so. But I have longed to hold you again, and now you’re here, and I am tired of lying to myself or you about what I want.”

He watches John digest that, then nod slowly, some of his old confidence seeming to return. “In that case,” he says with a hint of a smirk and a lilting tone that James has missed desperately, “I think you should take me to bed.”

It’s a terrible idea, really. They should talk about the war, and about the way everything ended. They should talk about the apologies they owe each other. They should talk about Madi and about Thomas and about what the hell kind of business John is here for and about whether John intends to leave him behind again. They should not do anything with all that shit still unspoken. But James has followed through with a spectacularly high number of terrible ideas, and this is one of very few likely to make him happy.

The rain has started again by the time they get to the bedroom and light a lamp, which might be proof that the weather god Flint theory is bullshit after all, because there is no rage or sorrow or anxiety to be found in the way he’s feeling as John presses his lips to James’s neck while gently pushing his jacket off his shoulders.

James kisses the cut on John’s cheek. He kisses the bruise on his chin. He kisses the bags under his eyes, the small unfamiliar scar he finds near his hairline, the corner of his eyes when tears start to form, the burning skin of his earlobes, the center of his forehead, and finally his mouth, deep but unhurried, smiling into the kiss when John lifts his hands to hold the back of James’s head and makes a pleased humming noise when he touches his hair for the first time.

They undress each other slowly, deliberately, one article at a time: John’s jacket, James’s shirt, John’s shirt, James’s trousers, and so forth, with a pause for kisses between each one. Fingers wander lazily along the skin that is uncovered as they restart the frightening, delightful process of learning each other’s bodies.

The hold they need to keep on each other to maintain John’s balance, since he’s propped the crutch against the footboard to use his hands more easily, has the benefit of ensuring that some part of them is almost always in contact. James thinks he might like to keep touching John forever.

“You’re still so strong,” John marvels softly, running his hand along a line of muscle down James’s back.

“I try to stay in good form,” says James, adding wryly, “Never know when I might need to kill someone.”

“That’s not funny,” he mutters, but he still pulls him in for another kiss and lets him tug him to the bed.

Settling with John on top of him, carefully balanced to avoid unnecessary pressure on the stump, James allows himself a few moments of just looking at him, his pupils blown wide, chest heaving slightly, face flushed, curls looking blueish in the weak beams of moonlight managing to break through the clouds.

He cups John’s arse with one hand and eases the other between their bodies to wrap around his cock. John moans and thrusts down into his grip, and James twists his hand, drawing out little gasps.

John leans their foreheads together and pants, “I missed you, too. I didn’t say that earlier, but fuck, James, I have missed you.”

“You’re the one who decided we should separate,” James says, his hand stilling for a second.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

He tilts his head to capture John’s lips, trying to quell the tide of old pain. When they pull apart he says, “We need to discuss this, but we don’t need to do it _right_ now, wouldn’t you agree?”

Of course, that was probably John’s intent in bringing it up now; he knows as well as James that this is a wildly inappropriate context for this conversation, but by starting it, and then covering it up in a haze of lust, maybe he thinks he can distract James from remembering that they never finished it.

Or maybe James is just being cynical again. He hopes that’s the case.

“You’re right,” John murmurs, squeezing James’s shoulder.

“I’m going to remind you that you said that, later.”

He laughs and takes hold of James’s cock, and after that there’s not much use for words.

The bed is empty when James wakes. He stares at the ceiling for a good five minutes, trying to reconcile the memory of John clinging to him last night as they were falling asleep with his absence now.

This is it, he thinks. The final severing. Maybe it’s better this way; maybe it was a mercy for John to do it like this, overnight, so he can pretend to himself that yesterday was a dream –

But there’s a clatter in the other room, the sound of someone moving dishes around, and something like hope starts to unfurl inside his chest.

He finds John spooning burnt oatmeal out of a pot into two bowls. He’s wearing one of James’s nightshirts, and James should be bothered by the proof that he’s been rummaging through his belongings, but instead he just feels a warmth, a tightness, like – well, like he might start weeping, but in a good way somehow.

James waits for him to put the pot back down by the hearth and then walks over to wrap his arms around him. John melts into the embrace and they hold each other tightly until John complains that breakfast is going to go cold.

They sit down, John’s foot pressed against James’s under the table. The food is improbably both over- and under-cooked, but tastes all right, and anyway it’s hard to focus on anything but the fact that John is still here. This reunion was an accident, and there were so many moments it would have been easy to run away, but he’s chosen to stay. It seems impossible that he could be here, wearing James’s clothes, feeding him, touching him, and occasionally smiling at him, almost shyly, like he’s remembering how to be happy. But he is. _He is._

A bowl of mediocre oatmeal does not erase the betrayals of the past, and is barely a start towards healing. But it’s something.

“I think,” John says after a long but only slightly tense silence, “That I would like to tell you about my life.”

James puts down his spoon. He watches the way John’s face seems to change in the shifting light from the window as a cloud passes by. He remembers sharing the darkness with him. He wonders what it would be like to discover what it’s like to live in the light, and share that with him too. He says, “I would like to listen.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm sparrowsfallingfromthesky on tumblr. Title is from Storms by The Ballroom Thieves again!


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